Avoiding Tilt

The most common way players get knocked out of tournaments or blow their account balance is through tilt. Tilt is a poker term to describe a player’s mental status when they are frustrated or mad, normally about a previous hand or the way in which an opponent has played their cards. Most players go into “tilt” mode after suffering a bad beat. In order to succeed at poker you must learn how to deal with tilt in the best possible way as if not, you will find yourself using the deposit button much more then you need to.

All beginner and bad players suffer with tilt, but only the best players learn how to fully deal with it. Every player has their own unique way to deal with tilt until eventually, after playing so many hands of poker and losing so many pots in which they were ahead, they are completely immune to them. Of course until you are at this stage you need to be able to deal with them in your own way.

The best possible way to deal with tilt as a beginner is to close the table, close the tournament and turn your computer off. If you do that there is no possible way you can lose money after the hand which has caused you to tilt. Of course by doing this you will still be angered by the beat and the very next time you play you will still be in this mood. Therefore you need to do something that relaxes you and will help take your mind off what has happened. When I was starting out I went for a walk each time I suffered a bad beat. Each and every night I would be so tired from all the exercise I would literally pass out on the sofa. Suprisingly though, each time I had taken a walk I would come back refreshed and ready to win my money back, that feeling often only lasted a few minutes and I would soon enough be walking again. You also need to find an activity or something you can do to relax yourself. I wouldn’t recommend taking a walk but maybe something like a video game or listening to music for example. After a while the feeling after you have just been beaten will wear away and you will eventually have seen this, done that attitude and you couldn’t care less about the previous hand. When you finally reach that stage you will find yourself making a lot more money then you have ever previously made from poker.